by Flack » Fri Dec 14, 2018 6:31 pm
Last, week, University of Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray was awarded the Heisman Trophy as the best collegiate football player in the country. Murray played backup quarterback at Texas A&M in 2015, transferred to OU (and sat out a year) in 2016, served as Baker Mayfield's backup (who also won the Heisman) in 2017, and only became the starting quarterback for OU this year. In the off-season, Murray played baseball for OU, was drafted by the Oakland Athletics, and awarded a $4.6 million signing bonus. Football, the sport in which he won the Heisman, is really just his side gig.
Roughly six hours after winning the Heisman, a USA Today reporter tracked down "homophobic tweets" by Murray. In the tweets, Murray referred to his friends as "queers." What the reporter downplayed was the fact that the tweets were seven years old, making Murray "14 or 15" (according to him) at the time.
(Thank god Twitter didn't exist when I was 14 or 15.)
That, of course, was irrelevant. Within 24 hours, this story ran the predictable cycle we are all familiar with. Murray apologized for his tweets, stating that they "didn't represent who he is today." Everybody yawned and went on their way.
Society has raised the bar to such ridiculously unobtainable heights that literally no one can measure up. I'm not talking about 21-year-old college athletes (posting on social media when they were 14) failing social scrutiny (or Miss USA
talking about non-English speaking Miss Universe competitors -- I'm talking about motherfucking
Ghandi. Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana
removed a statue of Ghandi from a university campus after complaints surfaced that Ghandi was racist. (In some of his early writings, apparently Ghandi used a racial slur when referring to South African people.)
Am I defending racial slurs against South African people? No. But this was Ghandi, and if Ghandi doesn't pass whatever test people have established for people who deserve a statue, I'm afraid all others will also fall short.
You don't have to travel to Ghana to find controversial statues. There's one on the college campus both I and Kyler Murray attended. Last month, a statue of a covered wagon was donated to the campus, but many students are calling to have it removed. There's nothing offensive about the statue itself, but who made it: Tom Otterness. In 1977 at the age of 25, Otterness made a short experimental art film called
Shot Dog Film in which he adopted a dog from a local shelter and then shot it on film. "Monumentally bad decision," said Otterness, who was attempting to make some sort of statement that isn't quite clear. Since releasing the film, Otterness has donated money to animal rescues and apologized for the film every single time somebody asks him about it. To some, like OU student Abigale Lee, that's not enough.
"
Yes, we can forgive it, but I don’t think we can forget it," said Lee, demonstrating a lack of understanding what it means to forgive. I think a lot of people forgot what it means.
Earlier this month, Kevin Hart, after being asked to host the Oscars, was also asked to apologize for a "series of homophobic tweets." When he refused, the Oscars told him to apologize, or step down. He stepped down. The headline (as it ran on Cosmopolitan) was
Kevin Hart Steps Down as Oscars Host After Refusing to Apologize for Homophobic Tweets, but that's technically not true. What it should say is that he stepped down after refusing to apologize for homophobic tweets
again. If you read the story, you'll see that Hart has already apologized for those tweets, specifically addressing them in a
Rolling Stone interview back in 2015. He just didn't want to apologize for them
again. How many apologies are enough? One individualized for everybody? Many of the attacks against Hart came because of tweets he made referencing things in his stand up act. I don't have the strength to talk about why comics shouldn't apologize for offensive jokes, but taking things out of context (like a comic's act) and then attacking them personally isn't right.
Speaking of context...
Over the past two weeks, the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has come under fire. In the song, a woman attempts to leave a man's home while the man attempts to get her to stay. One line in the song specifically has people up in arms, one in which the woman says, "What's in this drink?" This was a common joke in the 1940s, when this song was written; the answer to the question was "alcohol," and the question was frequently uttered tongue-in-cheek. SNL, who ran a skit with Bill Cosby singing the song, is being blamed for leading the charge against the Academy Award-winning song.
Backlash against the song is no more ridiculous than recent attacks on
A Christmas Story (a movie "all about consumerism") and
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which Huffington Post called "seriously problematic" and "a parable on racism & homophobia."
On "Does it Hold Up?", a YouTube show in which teens and young adults are exposed to things and asked the titular question, several young adults (ages 18-29) were asked to watch several episodes of Seinfeld
and offer their opinions. It's almost enjoyable to watch them cringe, almost unable to speak the term "Soup Nazi" and, in regards to the episode in which Jerry and his friends give a woman NyQuil so that they can play with her vintage toy collection, one kid responds, "if that were to air today, everybody on that show would be fired." He's probably right. By the end of the episode, roughly half of the kids say that Seinfeld -- universally praised as one of the best television sitcoms of all time -- doesn't hold up. Just wait until you hear what they think about the Indian Cigar Store episode!
That reminds me of Crayola's old "Indian Red" controversy. Remember Indian Red? You only got that color in the 128 box of crayons -- maaaybe the 64 pack -- but nothing less. In the late 90s, a group of Native American teachers began complaining about the color, saying that young students found the term "Indian Red" racially insensitive. In 1999, Crayola renamed the color "chestnut," but not without reminding the public in a press release that the crayon was named for a dye commonly used in India, and had nothing to do with Native "Indian" Americans. That was when I learned the lesson that even when people are offended and you weren't being offensive, sometimes you have to apologize anyway.
I guess if Gandhi, Rudolph, and "Baby it's Cold Outside" can all be offensive, it shouldn't be surprising that a crayon color can, too.
My step-grandfather (who once infamously referred to himself as a "sand-n****r" on a Christmas home video) once told me "didn't see anything wrong with black face." I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be a guy who is out of touch with what's legitimately offensive. Meyers-Briggs says I'm a people pleaser to a fault, and that's true -- that being said, Rudolph's still okay in my book, and so are most of those other things. It's hard to know what is offensive and who is offended in a world where everybody is offended by everything all the time.
Baby, it's hot inside, and my blood is turning Indian Red.
Last, week, University of Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray was awarded the Heisman Trophy as the best collegiate football player in the country. Murray played backup quarterback at Texas A&M in 2015, transferred to OU (and sat out a year) in 2016, served as Baker Mayfield's backup (who also won the Heisman) in 2017, and only became the starting quarterback for OU this year. In the off-season, Murray played baseball for OU, was drafted by the Oakland Athletics, and awarded a $4.6 million signing bonus. Football, the sport in which he won the Heisman, is really just his side gig.
Roughly six hours after winning the Heisman, a USA Today reporter tracked down "homophobic tweets" by Murray. In the tweets, Murray referred to his friends as "queers." What the reporter downplayed was the fact that the tweets were seven years old, making Murray "14 or 15" (according to him) at the time.
(Thank god Twitter didn't exist when I was 14 or 15.)
That, of course, was irrelevant. Within 24 hours, this story ran the predictable cycle we are all familiar with. Murray apologized for his tweets, stating that they "didn't represent who he is today." Everybody yawned and went on their way.
Society has raised the bar to such ridiculously unobtainable heights that literally no one can measure up. I'm not talking about 21-year-old college athletes (posting on social media when they were 14) failing social scrutiny (or Miss USA [url=https://nypost.com/2018/12/13/miss-usa-slammed-for-mocking-non-english-speaking-beauty-queens/]talking about non-English speaking Miss Universe competitors[/url] -- I'm talking about motherfucking [b][i]Ghandi[/i][/b]. Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana [url=https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/14/africa/gandhi-statue-ghana-intl/index.html]removed a statue of Ghandi from a university campus[/url] after complaints surfaced that Ghandi was racist. (In some of his early writings, apparently Ghandi used a racial slur when referring to South African people.)
Am I defending racial slurs against South African people? No. But this was Ghandi, and if Ghandi doesn't pass whatever test people have established for people who deserve a statue, I'm afraid all others will also fall short.
You don't have to travel to Ghana to find controversial statues. There's one on the college campus both I and Kyler Murray attended. Last month, a statue of a covered wagon was donated to the campus, but many students are calling to have it removed. There's nothing offensive about the statue itself, but who made it: Tom Otterness. In 1977 at the age of 25, Otterness made a short experimental art film called [i]Shot Dog Film[/i] in which he adopted a dog from a local shelter and then shot it on film. "Monumentally bad decision," said Otterness, who was attempting to make some sort of statement that isn't quite clear. Since releasing the film, Otterness has donated money to animal rescues and apologized for the film every single time somebody asks him about it. To some, like OU student Abigale Lee, that's not enough.
"[url=https://kfor.com/2018/11/13/ou-students-petition-to-remove-statue/]Yes, we can forgive it, but I don’t think we can forget it[/url]," said Lee, demonstrating a lack of understanding what it means to forgive. I think a lot of people forgot what it means.
Earlier this month, Kevin Hart, after being asked to host the Oscars, was also asked to apologize for a "series of homophobic tweets." When he refused, the Oscars told him to apologize, or step down. He stepped down. The headline (as it ran on Cosmopolitan) was [url=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a25433374/kevin-hart-steps-down-oscars-host-homophobic-tweets/]Kevin Hart Steps Down as Oscars Host After Refusing to Apologize for Homophobic Tweets[/url], but that's technically not true. What it should say is that he stepped down after refusing to apologize for homophobic tweets [i]again[/i]. If you read the story, you'll see that Hart has already apologized for those tweets, specifically addressing them in a [url=https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-news/kevin-harts-funny-business-67836/]Rolling Stone interview back in 2015[/url]. He just didn't want to apologize for them [i]again[/i]. How many apologies are enough? One individualized for everybody? Many of the attacks against Hart came because of tweets he made referencing things in his stand up act. I don't have the strength to talk about why comics shouldn't apologize for offensive jokes, but taking things out of context (like a comic's act) and then attacking them personally isn't right.
Speaking of context...
Over the past two weeks, the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" has come under fire. In the song, a woman attempts to leave a man's home while the man attempts to get her to stay. One line in the song specifically has people up in arms, one in which the woman says, "What's in this drink?" This was a common joke in the 1940s, when this song was written; the answer to the question was "alcohol," and the question was frequently uttered tongue-in-cheek. SNL, who ran a skit with Bill Cosby singing the song, is being blamed for leading the charge against the Academy Award-winning song.
Backlash against the song is no more ridiculous than recent attacks on [url=https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/5-reasons-christmas-story-actually-terrible-christmas-movie-170054575.html]A Christmas Story[/url] (a movie "all about consumerism") and [url="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/12/02/people-are-upset-about-rudolph-red-nosed-reindeer-heres-why/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ddbd608084bc"]Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer[/url], which Huffington Post called "seriously problematic" and "a parable on racism & homophobia."
On "Does it Hold Up?", a YouTube show in which teens and young adults are exposed to things and asked the titular question, several young adults (ages 18-29) were asked to watch several episodes of Seinfeld [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5BxjUmzPPA]and offer their opinions[/url]. It's almost enjoyable to watch them cringe, almost unable to speak the term "Soup Nazi" and, in regards to the episode in which Jerry and his friends give a woman NyQuil so that they can play with her vintage toy collection, one kid responds, "if that were to air today, everybody on that show would be fired." He's probably right. By the end of the episode, roughly half of the kids say that Seinfeld -- universally praised as one of the best television sitcoms of all time -- doesn't hold up. Just wait until you hear what they think about the Indian Cigar Store episode!
That reminds me of Crayola's old "Indian Red" controversy. Remember Indian Red? You only got that color in the 128 box of crayons -- maaaybe the 64 pack -- but nothing less. In the late 90s, a group of Native American teachers began complaining about the color, saying that young students found the term "Indian Red" racially insensitive. In 1999, Crayola renamed the color "chestnut," but not without reminding the public in a press release that the crayon was named for a dye commonly used in India, and had nothing to do with Native "Indian" Americans. That was when I learned the lesson that even when people are offended and you weren't being offensive, sometimes you have to apologize anyway.
I guess if Gandhi, Rudolph, and "Baby it's Cold Outside" can all be offensive, it shouldn't be surprising that a crayon color can, too.
My step-grandfather (who once infamously referred to himself as a "sand-n****r" on a Christmas home video) once told me "didn't see anything wrong with black face." I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be a guy who is out of touch with what's legitimately offensive. Meyers-Briggs says I'm a people pleaser to a fault, and that's true -- that being said, Rudolph's still okay in my book, and so are most of those other things. It's hard to know what is offensive and who is offended in a world where everybody is offended by everything all the time.
Baby, it's hot inside, and my blood is turning Indian Red.